Sunrise

I have been fortunate in my life that each morning, without fail, the sun has risen. There was a time when I rose with that sun, joy-filled and with a spring in my step. I have always had a roof over my head, good, healthy food to eat and warm blankets when I was cold. I even had a fan when the temperature was too much to bear. In all, it has been a blessed life. 

We live simply. I have always thought our house was about 600 square feet. A carpenter friend was visiting and we were discussing the size of houses, he informed me that this house was probably a a bit less than 600 square feet. Oh, well. The yard is large and has fruit bearing trees, raised garden beds, lavender, rosemary, sage and mint in abundance. It also has a clothesline, my favorite part. One year I painted the posts hot pink and painted flowers and fairies all over them.

I have lived across the street from the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, and I have lived in a deep green Hawaiian valley blessed with nightly rain and sunny days. I have lived on the ocean in a small hut on Kovalum Beach in South India, and in a small village along the Yamuna River in Uttar Pradesh. I have lived in a sweet and simple cottage amidst the vines of a Banyan Tree. In fact, one of the largest Banyan Trees on the Island of Oahu.

I have lived along the shores of the Williamette River in Oregon and my children spent many a day with their toes in the cool Northwest snowmelt. The shore was covered in chamomile and on a hot summer day, it smelled as though we were swimming in chamomile tea.

In Seattle, we rode the ferry atop the Puget Sound when the children were restless and walked around the large circumference of Green Lake each morning. We even rowed a boat in the deep green water in the warm cloudless days of a Pacific Northwest summer.

I guess I have always been a searcher. A wanderer. Yet, this wee home that I have made with my children is more like home than all of the amazingly diverse places we have been blessed to reside. It has been just the three of us, the three musketeers. We have slept each night to the rhythm of our heartbeats. There has been no privacy, just juicy togetherness. It has not been magical every moment. Sometimes the healthy food was hard to come by, or we had to save for the fan to cool the dry, hot of Los Angeles in July. But, the rent is affordable and in the end, I knew I could at least cover that, and the nights would be safe.

The shake down year of my back injury and what seems to be the loss of my career and community is putting all of these years into question. I am unsure of what my next step is, I am feeling lost. And although the sun keeps rising, the kick in my step is lost. I often find myself wishing I could sleep all day. Someone said the other day, what if you just stopped being depressed? Is that possible? Can you just stop? Can you turn it off, like a bad movie?

For today, I am going to remember that I have not always felt the way I am feeling today. There will be a light, it is coming, I can feel it. Until then, the sun continues to rise...